


Damage Done

by 5SecondsOfButthole



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Michael is struggling, Recovery, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 18:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6019908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5SecondsOfButthole/pseuds/5SecondsOfButthole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael thinks that maybe one day the seeds of happiness his friends are planting will grow roots that reach so far into the dirt of his mind that he won’t be lying to them and to himself when he says he’s okay but right now all he can think is that they're going to leave again.</p><p> </p><p>Or the one where Michael is left alone to fall apart and when the rest of the boys realize what's wrong they struggle to put him back together.</p><p>Originally part of the fic It Hurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am continuing the Alternate Ending of It Hurt here (you don't need to read one to understand the other), the first chapter is the same as in that fic and the second and third chapters were the alternate ending of that fic but i've put them both here instead so there is no confusion with the plot.
> 
> The first two chapters cover a large period of time because they were originally written as stand alone fics but the following story will be slower.
> 
> I hope you guys like it!!!

**I also made a[Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/doran.barrone/playlist/107096ygKwvJW75OS1tS5f) to go with this fic.**

It hurt. It hurt to see them together. His heart sank every time he saw “Cake” (as they jokingly referred to themselves) together. It wasn’t that Michael was in love with either of them; it was just that, they were his best friends, his only friends and now that they were together they never really had time for him.

Sure they invited him to hang out sometimes but he was constantly stuck third wheeling and he felt so fucking unneeded. Calum never called him when he was sad anymore. Luke never texted him when he was bored. They never invited him to anything anymore unless it had to do with their shitty band. And Michael was trying desperately to be happy for them, he really was, but it was hard to be happy when he was alone so much.

Even before they were together the movies that had been _their_ thing, but when they finally realized how gone they were for each other everything was _their_ thing. Going to McDonalds after school was _their_ thing. Listening to the new All Time Low album was _their_ thing. Sleepovers were _their_ thing. Going to concerts was _their_ thing. Hanging out on the weekends was _their_ thing. Cuddling was _their_ thing.

At first the only thing that wasn’t _their_ thing was lunch time spent in the music room. That was 5 Seconds of Summer’s thing. Their shitty small band whose members didn’t know how to write songs was the only thing that wasn't _theirs_. But then Calum fucked it up and figured out how to match words with chords and wrote Luke a song, it was a shitty song with lyrics so cheesy Michael wanted to barf. But Luke loved it, he asked his boyfriend to play it every day, effectively turning lunch into _their_ thing. Leaving Michael sitting off to the side with his guitar and the chords of the song he thought they were supposed to be practicing for a cover, waiting for them to realize he was still there… they never really did.

So he stopped going to lunch. He stopped doing a lot of things. He stopped texting them. He stopped asking if they wanted to hang out. He stopped tagging along after school. It wasn’t like they needed or wanted him there. They didn’t want or need him in general now that they had each other. They never texted him anymore. They never asked him to hangout. They rarely talked to him in classes they had together.

He didn’t matter anymore. And it hurt.

Calum had always been there. They’d clung to each other in 3rd grade and promised to never let go, but then Luke came along and for a while they all clung to each other, until Michael was pushed to the side. Nothing hurt the way being left behind hurt. Calum was the one constant in his life, when his parents fought, when he was sad, when he was happy, when he was angry, when he was bored, Calum was there. And suddenly he wasn’t. Michael had nothing and no one to lean on.

It had been a whole month since the last time he hung out with them and a week since he’d had a whole conversation when he broke down. For the three months leading up to that day he’d held it together and shoved his emotions to the side, pretending he didn’t care that he was alone. But when his parents were fighting about how to deal with the fact that he was shitty son whose grades were shit and skipped class more often than not, and all he wanted was someone to turn to, pretending he didn’t care didn’t work anymore.

He cried. He’d always hated crying, it made his feel pathetic, and normally he would call Cal who knew how to calm him down and keep him from panicking, but he couldn’t. Calum didn’t care anymore, he had Luke now. So Michael was stuck crying alone, stuck hating himself alone, with no one to tell him he would be okay. And he tries to be quiet; his parents don’t need to worry about him anymore than they already are, but keeping quiet is hard when you’re breaking into what feels like a thousand pieces. Sobs escape his chest and he wraps his arms around himself because maybe if he hugged tight enough he could pull himself together, but it doesn’t work and the sobs continue, and continue, and continue. It feels like he cries for years but no one comes; his parents continue their shouting match.

When his tears run dry he runs to his bathroom and plugs his iPod into the speakers he keeps there for shower singing with shaky hands and turns on All Time Low, trying not to think about how Luke wanted to cover them or about how he and Calum listened to them for the first time together. He turns the volume up until he can’t hear his own thoughts and strips before getting in the shower, turning the water as hot as it will go.

He stands under the hot water and stares at the wall in front of him. There's an empty feeling in his chest, he thinks that maybe it’s what it would feel like if someone tore his heart out. He remembers reading a quote once that said when you get close to someone and open up to them you give them a piece of yourself, and maybe he shouldn’t have given Luke and Cal such big pieces because now that he’s alone and those chunks of himself are missing he needs them more than ever.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there and his legs eventually give out or maybe he just lost the will to stand and he ends up sitting on the shower floor under rapidly cooling water. And as Therapy comes on he feels himself fall apart a little more and tears he didn’t think he was hydrated enough to have fall down his cheeks.

There’s a razor sitting on the tile next to his hand and when his fingers accidentally brush the plastic handle he grips it instinctively. He’s seen a lot of shit about cutting on the internet before and he’s not going to lie to himself and say he’s never thought about it because he has, but last time he thought about it Calum was there to tell him it would be okay. And now he’s alone and he wonders if maybe it helps like people say it does.

So he takes his shampoo bottle and brings it down hard on to the plastic encasing the thin strips of metal, it takes a few tired but he eventually breaks the plastic and the blades fall to the tile and it takes him a few minutes to pick them up with his pruney fingers and wet floor. He stares at his wrist for a minute before saying fuck it, no one cares enough to see them.

He runs the metal lightly over the pale skin, so softly he doesn’t even break the surface. He’s so stupid he can’t even cut himself right. He puts more pressure and moves the tiny blade quicker and is rewarded with a stinging pain and a few spots of blood dotting the line; he felt almost nothing, it was like he just pinched himself, this couldn’t be what everyone talked about online. He does it one more time, lining the small piece of metal underneath the two previous lines and pressing harder than before; he gasps at the pain that shoots through him and watches the blood bubble to the surface, it was almost mesmerizing. And maybe he gets it now. Maybe. Watching the blood is almost hypnotizing, it gathers in small puddles before slipping over the edge of his forearm and dripping down until it hits the tile and mixes with the water.

And the pain is the perfect way to distract himself; he’s not thinking about how alone he is while he watches the blood, he’s not thinking about how Calum and Luke are probably texting that very moment. He's focused on the pain emitting from his thigh and the water turning red.

Except maybe it scared him a little bit, because pain isn’t supposed to feel like that, it wasn’t supposed to make him feel better. So he leaves it at 3 cuts and turns the now cold water off before putting the blades somewhere they won’t be found and turning his music off and laying in bed for hours wishing he could fall asleep.

He feels numb the next day and he just goes through the motions. Gets up and puts on the first clothes he sees (a dirty shirt and sweat pants with a hole in the crotch), skips breakfast and ignores his parents when they ask in the most condescending voice he’d ever heard if he was even planning on going to school, and spends the entire day at school sitting alone listening to music that made him feel not so alone. He got home and laid in bed for hours before going on Facebook because maybe seeing stupid people’s posts about nothing will make him smile and that would be nice but the first thing he sees is a picture of his best friends ( ~~ex-best friends~~?) with Luke kissing Calum’s cheek and Calum smiling like he finally as everything he’s ever wanted. And fuck. Michael used to make him smile like that, and Calum used to make Michael smile like that too. But now they don’t even talk and Michael is alone.

And the worst part is that it was probably his fault. His fault for not being more important. His fault for being annoying and boring. His fault for not being good enough. His fault for not being funny enough. His fault for not being talented enough. His fault for not being enough. He was never enough. Not for Calum and Luke and not for his parents, not even for himself.

He slams his laptop closed and crawls into his bed and he kind of wants to know if hurting will make him feel better but he can’t really bring himself to do it again. So he lies in bed and listens to music until he falls asleep.

The next day is the same but with more sad. And the more days that pass the more the sad grows until it’s the only thing he feels. Because he hates how he lets himself be so pathetic. He hates how he can’t even be happy for Luke and Cal. He hates how he makes his parents fight. He hates how he can’t concentrate in class because all he wants to do is go home and lay in his bed and maybe cry while he listens to music. He hates how he hates everything. He hates himself so much.

And he cuts again two weeks after the first time and this time he feels like he almost knows what he’s doing. Except not because the cuts bleed a lot longer than he thought they would, but in the end he kind of likes it that way, because watching the blood drain was like watching his sadness drain away. And yes it hurt. But it was a good hurt. And maybe that was fucked up but he didn’t really have it in him to care.

The first time he hurt himself it scared him but not this time. He thinks that, yes, he completely gets why people do this. He sees what they mean when they say it helps. He thinks that maybe it would be better to do this more so he can watch the sad drain with the red.

The sense of relief from his sadness doesn’t last long but it’s long enough to make it worth it. Hurting is better than thinking.

It becomes a regular thing. For two months. He goes through the motions, tries to make his parents happy and go to school, but school makes it so much worse because his teachers take away his headphones when they catch him using them; he doesn’t have music to distract him from the fact that no one needs him, and wants him, and no one talks to him, and he’s so alone if he disappeared no one would notice.

The thought of disappearing, leaving, crosses his mind occasionally but Calum and Luke still smile at him the hall despite the fact that they hadn’t spoken in almost three months and maybe they would miss the smile he sends back.

He wonders if they see the difference, if they care. Do they miss him or are they happy with just each other? Do they wonder why he’s always alone? Do they wonder why he only wears long sleeved shirts? He tries not to let himself think about them too much because they’re happier without him and thinking out it always ends in him crying because he wasn’t good enough. He’s never good enough and it hurts.

And life goes on the same for a few more weeks and his arms are covered in pink scars and red cuts and it’s the least pale he’s ever been and its almost funny except it’s getting hotter and he wants to wear short sleeved shirts but he can’t. And it makes him sad so he adds a few more lines to his collection of cuts and lets the relief wash over him as his sad drains away.

Calum and Luke have stopped smiling at him in the halls. And it hurts. Because now he _knows_ he’s done something wrong. It really was his fault. And he’d know it all along but now there's no doubt that he was the one to ruin it.

His parents still fight and yell at each other and at him. And he’s not good enough, not smart enough, not put together enough, not nice enough, not enough. He's never enough. And it hurts.

And one day his dad doesn’t come home from work. He never comes home again, because he took all his things and ran away from his family. His mom doesn’t talk to him for a month and a half and he thinks maybe she hates him but then he knows. His mom blames him.

One day when school was too much and he needed to get out and went home early she was waiting. She tells him if he hadn’t pissed his dad off so much this wouldn't have happened. He runs to his room and locks the door before she can finish her yelling, not that it stops her, she just keeps shouting at him through the door.

It was all his fault. Always his fault. Everything would be better if he just disappeared. He fucked everything up. And he really needs someone right now and his blades are across the hall in the bathroom and he doesn’t want to open the door and face his mother. So he settles for scratching at the cuts already on his arms but the sad isn’t going away and it feels like its growing bigger by the second and he can’t do it. And he really really needs someone right now.

And he knows he shouldn’t. It’s been almost 4 months since the last time they talked but fuck the idea of ending everything sounds so fucking nice right now. But he doesn’t want to die, not really, he just wants the hurting to end and if maybe someone could convince him there’s a way for that to happen he won’t have to leave so he could feel better? So he picks up his phone and wipes away the tears he hadn’t really registered running down his cheeks and calls the person he misses most in the word, Calum.

And it rings. And rings. And rings. And rings. And then voice mail.

He lets out a sob because, fuck, Cal really didn’t care anymore did he. And it feels like there's nothing left but he calls his very last hope and prays the blond boy will answer.

And the phone rings. And rings. And rings. And rings. And then voice mail.

He's ruined it all. He was never enough. They're happier without him. His mom will be happier without him. His dad didn’t even want him. He’s not enough and it hurts. It hurts too much. And the sad hasn’t left for the past 7 months, maybe longer but before then he had Calum and Luke to make him forget about it. And now there's no way to forget about it. Not if he stays. And the only thing he can think of is leaving.

If he leaves he won’t have to be sad and alone and hurt and pathetic and worthless. And no one will miss him so what’s there to stop him?

And there’s a belt on the floor and it couldn’t be that hard to off himself with it, right? All he would have to do is wrap it around his neck and tighten it until he stopped breathing. He could do that. And he does that.

And it hurts. And his mom is still yelling, he can hear her through the door but he ignores the abuse she shouts at him. And the screen of his phone stays black. And he pulls harder on the belt. And it hurts. And his lungs still want air but he refuses to let them have it. And it hurts. It burns. His fingers start to go numb and he fights to keep hold of the belt. And the leather is biting into his skin. And it hurts. And his vision is starting to blurr. And his arms and legs give out and he loses his grip on the belt as he falls to the ground. And it hurts. Air rushes back into his lungs. And it hurts.

Fuck. He couldn't even kill himself right.

And he feels weaker than ever. Not just mentally but physically too because his arms feel like they weigh 50 pounds each and his legs feel like they're pinned under a car and his chest is heaving and his breathing is still shaky and his eyes are closing and he feels himself falling into unconsciousness. And that was what he wanted but he knows he’ll wake up again and that wasn’t the point.

 


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes up some undetermined amount of time later and its dark outside. But he doesn’t even care. He’s numb. And he’s been numb before but this is different, it feels deeper, like it reaches farther into his body. He turns his head and it hurts, he probably bruised it. Great. He sits up and grabs his ipod from the floor where it fell out of his pocket earlier, checks the time (2:56 a.m.), puts it on shuffle.

He feels like this should be more dramatic. He should be crying and screaming and running to find something to off himself with, because that’s what happens in movies but all he wants to do is lay on his bed and listen to music until he sleeps again. And that’s what he does.

He doesn’t go to school the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. And he only moves to eat, and pee, and grab his charger because his iPod and phone are dead and he needs music. And he brings a towel and his blades into his room to lessen the amount of time he spends out of bed. And his neck still hurts and there’s a purple bruise in the shape of his belt and it hurts. He hates it. He hates everything.

Thinking was never a good thing for him but maybe now it is because he’s under no illusions of what his life is and who he is and who his friends are. First, his life is pathetic. Because second, he’s a horrible person who fucks everything up. And third, his old friends are lucky to have each other because it finally gave them a chance to get away from him which they probably wanted all along.

And he thinks that maybe he’s always been sad because looking back all he sees is shades of grey but no white and he thinks that maybe Luke and Calum were the white that mixed with the black and let him be grey but now they're gone and so is the white and he’s left only with black.

His mom yells at him that she’ll kick him out unless he goes to school so he goes, unshowered, in stained sweatpants and the first hoodie he’d seen that morning. And he doesn’t bother covering his neck because no one’s going to look that closely at him and if they did there was no way they would care enough to ask why there was a slowly fading purple bruise on his neck.

And school and life continue the way they did before. He fades into the background and Luke and Calum shine like the fucking sun and don’t even notice him. He goes through the motions and cuts when the numb and the sad are too much. And his mom yells but that’s okay because he’ll try again soon and maybe this time he’ll actually die.

He sees Luke and Calum hanging out with a new kid, he thinks he heard someone call him Ashton, and it hurts. Because they don’t want him but they want someone else.

He wasn’t good enough. He never was. He wasn’t good enough for his dad. For his mom. For them. For himself. He was so fucking pathetic and worthless no wonder they left him.

Things change when Calum sits next to him at lunch two weeks after he tried to kill himself.

“Hey,” his ex best friend’s voice is hesitant, and maybe worried but Michael doesn’t see why he would be, after all they hadn’t talked in so long he didn’t bother to keep track.

“Hi,” his own voice is quiet, he hasn’t really talked much for the past few weeks, it almost hurts his throat.

There’s a silence broken only by the chattering of the rest of the school around the corner, “How are you?”

Michael looks down and refuses to look into Calum’s eyes, because he could never really lie to Cal and he doesn’t need to know how fucked up Michael is, “Fine.” Why is he here? Why after all this time did he choose to talk to him? Was it a bet? Did he pity him for being so alone? He didn’t even let the thought that maybe Calum missed him just as much as he missed Calum because he wasn’t really much to miss.

“I know it’s been a while since we talked but I can still tell when you're lying.” Calum carefully puts his hand on Michael’s shoulder, “What’s going on? I know we aren’t that close anymore but you can still trust me.”

Michael freezes at the touch, it might be the first time anyone’s touched him in a kind way in months, but he stops himself from leaning into it. He doesn’t deserve comfort and kind things. And who the fuck does Calum think he is? He can’t just sit next to him and ask questions like that, “Why are you here?”

“Because I still care about you, you fuck. And I've watched you get sadder and sadder. And I've watched you drift away from Luke and I and you haven’t even tried talking to us in months. Maybe you don’t miss us or care about us but we still consider you our best friend.” Calum is glaring when Michael looks up, but his eyes soften when they meet Michael’s blue ones, “And there’s a bruise on your neck and if someone is hurting you at home you can say at mine. My mom wouldn't mind. She loves you. I know you and your dad never really got along and he used to yell at you a lot but hurting you is different.”

Michael’s heart was beating so fast he might as well have run a mile, his hands started to shake and his breath was shallow, “No one’s hurting me. You guys were too caught up in each other to even look at me and I didn’t want to stay where I want needed or wanted. And I have to go.” Michael stood and walked away from the skinny Kiwi boy and left the school despite the fact that he had to classes left in the day. He ran until he got to his house where he let himself fall apart.

It’s like a replay of what happened the first time he cut. The crying and the music and the shower but this time he knows what he’s doing when he cuts. And he knows how much pressure he needs to use to bleed. And he knows that he deserves to hurt. And he knows that Calum just pitied him. And he knows that his mom really doesn’t give a damn about him because she didn’t even notice the bruise on his neck. And he knows that cutting over scared skin doesn’t hurt as much as fresh skin but it bleeds more so he cuts on his stomach for the pain and his wrists for the blood. And he sits for 3 albums, letting himself bleed in the cold water on the cold tile of his shower debating how long it would take him to bleed out.

He’s light headed and dizzy when he stands but he knows if he drinks some water and eats something he’ll be okay. And he’s shivering so he puts on some sweats, a long sleeve shirt and a hoodie, not bothering to bandage his cuts ~~if they get infected so be it, he’ll be dead soon anyway~~. He lays down on his bed and half a song later he falls asleep.

He wakes up to his mom yelling that he had to go to school. And so turns on his auto pilot he doesn’t have it in him to think anymore. He doesn’t bother changing out of the clothes he slept in and goes to school.

Classes pass by slowly and he doesn’t pay attention, choosing to bite his nails and stare at the clock counting the minutes until he could be somewhere where a teacher wouldn't take his headphones away if they caught him using them.

And when it’s finally lunch and he can listen to music, he jams his headphones into his ears and goes to sit in his corner, ready for his 30 blissful minutes of being alone with his music. Only Calum had the idea in his head to pull one of the ear buds out of Michael’s ear as he sat next to the sad blond, his boyfriend trailing behind him.

Michael glared at his ex-best friends, “Can I help you?”

“We just want to ta-”

Calum interrupts his boyfriend, “Why did you run yesterday? Please Mikey if something’s wrong you can tell me. You can tell us.”

Michael glares at the couple, he can’t let them hurt him again, “There’s nothing wrong and even if there was why would I tell you?”

“Because we’re your friends and we care about you, don’t be such a dick. We can tell something’s up!” Calum is basically yelling at this point.

“Calum!” Luke put his hand gently on the brunet’s shoulder and gave him a pointed look, “Calm down, if Mikey doesn’t want to tell us he doesn’t have to.” He turns his head to Michael, hesitating for a split seconds before asking, “Can we sit with you? We… we miss you.”

Michael opened his mouth to tell them to fuck off but no sound came out and he found himself nodding. He thinks that maybe this isn’t a joke, maybe they did actually miss him; but the voice in the back of his head reminds him he’s pathetic and no one could ever truly care about him.

And lunch passes slowly, conversation is choppy, Calum and Luke keep trying to talk with him but Michael can’t bring himself to talk, he’s afraid that whatever words come out of his mouth will make them leave again, make them realize why they were gone in the first place. He violently reminds himself that they don’t care, no one cares. How could anyone care about a pathetic idiot like him?

He’s torn from his thoughts by Luke clearing his throat, “Do, uh, do you wanna hang out after school? We could go to McDonalds like we used to?”

And maybe Michael should go because it’s better than going home and crying and bleeding. But when he opens his mouth to say yes no sounds come out and he shakes his head. If he hangs out with them they’ll remember why they left him in the first place and the 20 minutes they’ve been sitting with him have been the best 20 minutes in months.

“Please Michael? We really really miss you,” Calum pleaded, grabbing Michael’s hand and squeezing.

Kind touch is such a rarity in Michael’s life at this point that he almost cries when Calum’s hand touches his and he’s terrified that if he opens his mouth he might cry, so he nods stiffly and blinks away the tears in his eyes, hoping Luke and Calum didn’t see them.

Luke bit his lip like he was going to say something but was, much to Michael’s relief, interrupted by the bell signaling the end of lunch.

Michael stands quickly and all but runs from his friends. He keeps his head down and fights off tears; from what he doesn’t know. He should be happy his best friends still care about him but there’s a nagging feeling in the back of him mind telling him not to go, they don’t really want him, it was just pity, it was always pity.

Luke texts him when school ends and tells him to meet them in the music room and he goes; hand shaking and breath heavy. He half expects the punk’d crew to be there with cameras laughing about how he thought they actually wanted to hang out with him but it’s just his friends, standing waiting around for him. It was almost like before they got together.

And they hang out. And its fun. And he smiles for the first time in what feels like forever. And they go to Calum’s house after they get food and they all play video games and listen to music the way they used to and its nice.

And as the next month goes by Luke and Calum start sitting with Michael again, eventually bringing the new guy Ashton into the group; and Michael is happy. Well, not really happy, he feels almost like an actor when he’s around them. He’s comfortable, he can talk and smile and sometimes laugh, and for a few seconds he tricks himself into thinking he’s okay, that he’s not sad anymore, but it’s all superficial.

He thinks that maybe one day the seeds of happiness his friends are planting will grow roots that reach so far into the dirt of his mind that he won’t be lying to them and to himself when he says he’s okay. When those thoughts that maybe he might be happy cross his mind self hatred shoots thorough him, he didn’t deserve to be happy, it leaves him alone in his room wondering if it would matter if he killed himself.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s been exactly two months since Michael's suicide attempt and it’s all he can think of. Despite being surrounded by his best friends his hands haven’t stopped shaking all day, his heart is beating a thousand miles and hour; he can’t focus on anything. The thought of leaving them and going home and ending it all runs circles in his mind.

And he knows his friends have noticed something is wrong with him because Ashton's hug lasts a lot longer that day after school and Luke has that look on his face like he wants to ask what's wrong but doesn't want to push it and Calum looks like he's just about ready to follow Michael home and make sure nothing happens to him. And they ask if he wants to hang out but the voices in his head tell him to go home, to be alone, where he can hurt all he wants. So he lies and says that his mom wants him home early (it was kind of sad how untrue that was, his mom would probably be happy if he was gone and never showed up at home again).

When he gets to his house he makes a beeline for his bathroom, where his razors sit waiting for him. And he thinks that maybe if he bleeds a little the pain can distract him from the thoughts of dying, so he sits on the floor and pulls his sleeves up revealing bright red cuts and old scars that haven’t had time to heal. And he tries to focus on the pain shooting through his body at the cool metals touch but he can’t and the blood runs down his arm leaving no sense of relief. The hurt and sadness build up inside him and they’re not leaving this time. They don’t flow out with the red. They grow.

And he cuts a little deeper each time he brings the blade down but no matter the depth of the cut the release he depends on doesn’t come. And his hands start to shake even more than before, the blood soaked blade eventually slipping from between his now red fingertips.

He knows that there’s a bottle of pills on the counter in arms reach and before he can really think about what he’s doing the bottle is in his trembling hands and he’s staring at the cap like it’s the only thing that matters to him, the blood on his hands stains the white bottle but he can’t be bothered to care.

He wants to be gone. He doesn’t deserve to be here. He doesn’t deserve his friends. And everything is so shit. And he’s so shit. And it’s all so hard; he doesn’t know how he can go on knowing he’ll end up alone. Except now maybe he has Calum and Luke and Ashton?

And Calum and Luke didn’t answer last time he tried to call but, they were at lunch for the past few weeks and they hung out with him after school and maybe they still cared. And he needs to be told that things are going to be okay because his own voice isn’t convincing anymore.

So he reaches out with shaky hands and grabs his phone, dialing Calum’s number and waiting. Half of him hopes Calum doesn’t answer, he probably doesn’t even want to answer; he’ll see Michael’s name on his screen and press ignore.

But he doesn’t.

He answers the phone.

Michael can hardly believe it.

“Hey Mikey! What’s up?” Calum’s voice sounds from the tiny shitty speaker on his phone. Michael can’t find it in him to make a sound, knowing if he does the only sounds he’ll make are sobs “Hello? Are you there?”

A tiny whimper escapes Michael’s lips, Calum answered. That must mean he cares a little right? He would care if Michael was gone right? Before he knows it he’s sobbing again.

“Michael? Are you okay? What's going on?” his friends concerned voice sounds over the phone and Michael can’t bring himself to say anything. His throat closes up and he can feel his heart start to beat faster, his body starts shaking even more than it already was, his sobs get louder. Calum’s voice over the phone becomes more urgent than Michael has ever heard it, “Mikey? Talk to me. What’s happening? I need you to breath for me okay?”

Michael takes in shaky deep breaths that don’t calm him at all and chokes out through his sobs, “I-I don’t wan-want to be here a-a-anymore Cal, I-I-I can’t fucking d-do it anymore.”

“What do you mean? What can’t you do anymore?”

Michael can hear Calum moving on the other side of the line, and his chest hurts and he’s getting dizzy and he just wants to be gone and he wants everything to be okay and his razor is right there and it looks so fucking tempting and it would be so easy to just down the pills in his hands, “I don’t want to b-be here anymore.”

“I don’t get it. Do you want to get out of your house?” the sound of a door opening and closing sounds from the speaker of Michael’s phone.

“No I-I don’t want to be anywhere anymore. I want to be gone. I wish I never happened,” Michael can feel his world shatter even more, he’s never said it out loud, he’s never told someone that he wishes he was dead. And he’s scared. What if Calum doesn’t care? What if Calum agrees with him? What if Calum gets freaked out and decides he hates him?

“Michael…” Calum’s voice is soft and low, “Please don’t say that. Never fucking say that again.”

The words burst from the older boy’s mouth before he can even think about it, “But it’s true. I hate everything. I hate myself. And I’m so fucking tired and its not worth it. I'm not worth it. All I've ever done is ruin things. Everyone would be better off without me.”

“That’s not true. None of that is true. Okay? I promise you, you are totally completely wrong. I love you Mikey. I want you here. I wouldn’t be better off without you. Please don’t hurt yourself.” As sick as it sounds Calum’s not surprised that this is happening; Michael hasn’t been Michael for a while now, he’s a sad fading shadow of the friend Calum had before. And he doesn’t know what to do. How is he supposed to fix it?

Michael lets out a harsh short laugh, “It’s a bit late for that Cal.”

Calum’s heart skips a beat and his hands start to shake as he gets in his car, “What the fuck do you mean by that Michael? Please tell me you haven’t done anything stupid,” the brunette’s voice gets steadily more hysterical, “Please Michael. I need you more than you know.”

“Please don’t lie to me Cal. You were fine without me for months. You don’t need me… no one needs me.”

“Shut the fuck up Mikey I’m on my way over right now. You have no idea how hard those months were for me. I know I was dumb and distracted because Luke and I had just gotten together and by the time I realized that I hadn’t seen you in a while it was too late but that’s a shitty excuse. I never should have left you alone like that. And I hate myself for letting us drift apart. I watched you get sadder and sadder and you don’t smile as much anymore and you stopped wearing short sleeves and I was so fucking worried about you and then you had that bruise on your neck and I'm scared I'm going to lose you Mikey please don’t take yourself away from me.” By now Calum is going 3 times the speed limit and is half way to Michael’s house and there’s tears running down his cheeks and his heart is beating too fast in his chest and he’s terrified that he’s too late and his best friend is going to be dead before he gets there.

The pill bottle in his hands falls to the ground and Michael brings his now free hand to cover his mouth and try to muffle the loud sobs still escaping him, "It's so hard Cal. I hate myself so much. My mom hates me too and she only ever yells at me. And my dad left us because I was a shitty son. And I'm just a shitty person in general and I can't do anything right and I'm dumb. And I can't go a day without hurting myself. I couldn't even kill myself right the first time. And I wasn't enough for my dad to stay or for you guys or for my mom or even for myself. And I'm so fucking awful. And everything is so hard and I just can't do it anymore. I don't want to."

If Calum thought that fighting with Luke was upsetting he was wrong, hearing Michael say all these horrible things about himself was 30 times worse, “Mikey I'm almost there okay? Please don’t hurt yourself anymore than you already have. You can do this. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m going to make you okay because if the other option is losing you that’s not okay. Things are going to get better I promise. I fucking promise. I just need you to stay with me a little longer. I need you to hold on for me. For Luke and Ashton too. We all love you and we all need you and we’ll all help you I promise. You will never be alone again Mikey. Just please, please, please don’t take yourself from us today.”

Hearing those words breaks Michael down. He’s finally hearing the words he’s needed for god knows how long but it almost doesn’t matter. He still wants to be gone. He doesn’t deserve for Calum to be rushing to him right now. He never should’ve called. “I don’t deserve you Cal. I don’t deserve any of you guys. I'm so fucking terrible and gross. How can you even stand to be around me?”

Calum screeches to a halt in front of Michael’s house and throws the door open, barely remembering to shut it in his haste to get to his best friend, “I can stand to be around you because I love you Michael. You deserve so much more than you will ever know. You are so amazing and forgiving and kind and smart and talented and I love you. You are so loved you have no idea.” Once he gets to the door he silently thanks god for the fact that the door is unlocked and he runs to Michael’s room, tuning his phone off. “Mikey? I'm here okay?”

“I-In here,” Michael's weak voice sounds from the bathroom and Calum walks into the room with his heart beating faster than he thinks it ever has and he feels it sink the moment he opens the door. Michal is sitting on the floor with his sleeves rolled up and blood covering what seems to be the entirety of his forearms.

“Mikey… what did you do?” Calum sinks to the floor next to him, grabbing the hand towel from next to the sink as he sits down, gently grabbing Michael’s arm and pressing the towel down.

“It’s not as bad as it looks I promise,” Michael stares down at his arm and sniffs a few times, there's still tears running down his face but Calum’s presence seems to have calmed his sobbing down enough for him to breath a little better although it still sounds as though he’s seconds away from having a panic attack.

“How long has this been going on?” Calum’s voice is low and soft and sad and Michael hates himself for making the normally happy boy so sad.

“Few months I guess… I've just been really lonely and my mom hates me and I hate me and everything was just too much and I-I needed a release. And… hurting was the only thing that really helped.”

And Calum doesn’t know what to say to that so he just pulls Michael in for a hug, crushing him into his chest, and it’s at an awkward angle but he doesn’t care because he just found out that his friend was hurting and he had no fucking idea and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt so god damn guilty in his entire life. And his mind drifts back to the bruise that adorned Michael neck not that long ago and his heart sinks even more, Michael had said that he tried to kill himself before and it didn’t work, “Mikey was… was that bruise you had from trying to hang yourself?”

“S-Sort of… um, I wrapped a belt around my neck and pulled but like, as I pulled and air stopped getting to my lungs my muscles I guess gave out and let go of the belt. It didn’t leave any permanent damage but yeah it gave me the bruise.” Michael pulled back and avoided Calum’s gaze.

The Kiwi boy could feel his heart break even more than before, “I'm so sorry I wasn’t there for you Mikey but I'm never going to leave you again. And you sure as fuck aren’t going to leave me.”

Michael nods slowly and doesn’t respond, only leaning his head against his friends shoulder and sighing heavily as Calum tries to clean his arms and not cry upon seeing the amount of cuts and scars marring the pale skin.

And they’re quiet as Calum wraps gauze around Michael’s arms, not really knowing what he was doing but trying. He breaks the silence once he’s done, “You are never going to be alone again Mikey. I swear to god I'm never leaving your side. You are going to shit with me in the room because I refuse to lose you. I am not going to lose my best friend again. I lost you for a few months and it was hell; I will not lose you forever. You are going to come home with me and I'm going to call Luke and Ashton over and we are all going to talk all this shit out. You got that? We are not letting you kill yourself, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. You hear me? Things are going to get better. I promise.”

Michael presses his face more firmly against Calum’s neck, tightens his arms around his middle and nods, wishing he believed him.


	4. Chapter 4

Michael has no idea how long they’ve been sitting on the cold hard bathroom floor but the blood that dripped off of his arms and onto the tile has dried and his neck is cramping from pressing himself so close to Calum when he makes the executive decision to pull away. Pretending that the whole world was just him and his best friend was nice but it’s time he comes back to reality and deals with the shit around him. He sits up only to have Calum pull him closer than before, “Calum, we, I-I need to clean up in here before my mom gets home,” Michael reaches up and wipes away the remnants of tear tracks from his cheeks.

“I’ll do it,” Calum fully pulls away and stands, grabbing the towel he’d used earlier only for Michael to quickly reach out and grab it before him.

“No.”

“Michael let me help.”

“I don’t want you to see more of this I-I made this mess I shouldn’t make you clean it up.”

“We can do it together then. You don’t need to do things alone, I'm not going to let you.”

The two boys make eye contact and Calum can see the uncertainty in Michael’s eyes, almost like he doesn’t believe him, not that Calum really blames him for not trusting his words, his previous actions couldn’t have inspired much confidence.

Michaels voice is hesitant when he speaks next, “Can we please just keep this between us Cal? I don’t want Luke and Ashton to know about me yet.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t it be better for you to have more people to talk to other than me and stuff? Do you not trust them or something? I think at least Luke has a right to know.”

“No he doesn’t,” the blondes voice is sharp and filled with panic, “No one has any kind of right to know anything about this. Not you, not my mom and certainly not Luke or Ashton. I don’t need more people knowing how pathetic I am.”

Calum's fingers slide down Michaels arm and gently rest above the bandages covering the scarred wrists, “Okay, we won’t tell them,” the Kiwi boys pauses, “for now. Only because it’s your decision, not-not because you're pathetic.”

Together they clean the bathroom, it doesn’t take long and Calum makes sure to grab the bottle of pills before Michael can and dumps it into the toilet, glaring as he watches the little white circles circle the drain before disappearing. Would it be too far for him to search the rest of the bathroom for more? What if Michael decided to try to kill himself for real? What if he doesn’t call Calum and there's extra pills hidden somewhere and Calum loses his best friend for real? He can check later, he decides. He’ll say he has to take a piss or something and check, make sure there's nothing else that Michael could use to hurt himself.

As they're about to leave the room Calum sees it and freezes. A razor blade that had somehow found it’s way into the corner of the room, there's a small amount of dried brown blood on the corner.

Calum thinks he's going to be sick.

That small thing he almost overlooked was what put the cuts on his best friends arm, it was the reason he spent the last few minutes wiping blood from the tile. Michael pressed that piece of metal into his own skin, made himself hurt. The pills were hard to look at and even harder to touch, they felt like balloons ready to pop. But even from a distance Calum knows this is a bomb ready to explode, and it wants as many causalities as possible. He doesn’t want to look at it, let alone touch it but he can't just leave it and he can't just ask Michael to pick it up. He never wants to know what it looks like in the blonde’s hands. So he takes a deep breath, reaches down with shaky hands, and picks the piece of metal up, quickly turning and throwing it in the toilet the way he did with the pills.

“I would’ve done that you know,” Michael’s voice breaks through Calum's cloud of thought.

“I never want to see you holding something like that, some-something you used t-t-t,” he takes a deep breath before continuing, “to hurt yourself.” Calum can't quite read the expression that crosses Michael’s face, it might be shame and surprise but his mind stops worrying about it when he realizes that Michael probably has more. There are probably more sharp things that he keeps hidden. His voice is slow when he speaks again, “Do you have more?”

Michael tries to play dumb, “More what?”

“Michael,” Calum knows that he probably should’ve just stuck to his original plan and searched the bathroom later but what if they're in his room? What if Calum doesn’t end up finding them in here? But at the same time what if he lies?

Michael looks down and bites his lip, the room is plunged into silence for a few minutes until the older of the two’s soft voice breaks it, “You-you can't take them.”

Calum's heart rate speeds up, Michael does have more and wants to fucking keep them, “Well I sure as fuck am not going to leave them here. Please Mike, tell me where they are.”

“No.” his arms wrap around himself and he backs away from his fiend, “No, you don’t get it. I need them.”

“No you don-”

Michael’s voice is loud this time, “Yes I fucking do. They're- i-it’s the only thing that helps.”

“Let me help, I'm here now. You don’t need to hurt.”

“You don’t get to say that,” he’s defensive now, “not after you and Luke abandoned me before. You don’t get to say that you're here, because you're going to leave again. And when you do all I'm going to have is my blades.”

“I promise I won’t leave again, I'm here to fucking stay. Please trust me. Let me take them. I can’t leave knowing you could hurt yourself the second I'm gone.”

Michael wants to nod but how can he, he doesn’t trust Calum to stay, he doesn’t expect it from anyone. He's not worth staying around for, Calum’s lying to him right now whether he knows it or not.

“Please Mikey just show me where they are or I'm going to start looking for them myself.”

“Fine,” Michael walks over to the cabinet and moves some of the extra sopes and shampoos out of the way, revealing a small pile of blades, “There, are you happy now?” He wishes he didn’t have to do this, wishes Calum never got to see him like this. He wants to go back in time and not call. Because now he has no blades and he needs to go out and get more.

Calum gently pulls Michael away from the cabinet letting out a quiet thank you before carefully gathering the remaining blades (he’s relieved to see that there’s only allergy pills hiding in the cabinet) and throwing them into the toilet and flushing.

He straightens up and pulls Michael out of the bathroom, and into the blonde’s room where they both lay on the bed, Calum pulling Michael so he’s half laying on him, his head tucked into Calum's neck, “I’m so sorry Mike. I just want to make sure you're safe, you know? I can't lose you. I can't let you can't take yourself away from me.”

“It’s okay,” Michael’s not really sure he believes his own words. He wants to trust Calum and believe what he said earlier about not leaving him alone but Michael doesn’t have a very good track record with keeping people in his life and Calum already left once who’s to say he won’t do it again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooooooooooooo
> 
> Sorry this was a little choppy I don't feel like it flows properly with the other chapters but I promise that from now on it should all be cohesive. 
> 
> This was the first real update/ new chapter for this fic because the others were originally a part of It Hurt and I hope this was the type of thing you wanted. 
> 
> I made a playlist for the fic as well (the link is at the beginning of chapter 1 btw) so I hope you listen to it and follow it and all that because I will probably put new stuff on it a lot.


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